You Hear the Voice… And It Is Yours

“Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, ‘Listen to me.’”

Jhumpa Lahiri

I don’t know how it happened for you – or if it has yet. For me, it was like this.

Forty-five years ago, I’d written and submitted several stories to periodicals like Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping. (It was the 80’s, okay?) All were rejected, and I wasn’t surprised, to be honest. I knew the writing was decent and the plots followed the expectations of women’s magazine fiction, but … 

Something was missing, something that wisped just out of my reach and I couldn’t quite grasp it.  You know, like the smoke from a candle when you first blow it out. 

At the time I was taking a break from teaching high school English and was determined to give myself five years to get published. If it didn’t happen within that time frame, I was going to shake off the writing dream. (I was a naive 29 years old, so there was that.) 

I checked a Writer’s Market out of the library and stumbled on a magazine called Face To Face, published by the United Methodist Publishing House for teenagers.

Teenagers. Huh. I knew their kind. I’d been doing my dog and pony show for that crowd for seven years. I knew how a 17 year old girl talked. Heck, I still talked that way myself from time to time. What if…

I wrote a story called “The Organist.” I submitted it to Face To Face. It was accepted. I earned $80, and I had my electric typewriter repaired. I had to, because now I was officially A Writer.

I didn’t know what to call it then, that Something That Was Missing. Now I do. 

It was my authentic writing voice. 

Reaching For a Definition

Yeah, that’s like trying to capture the aforementioned candle smoke. 

An authentic writing voice isn’t something we learn from reading a book on the subject – though there are tons of them out there, and they can be helpful in setting you in the right direction.

Nor is it something a mentor can teach you. Actually, I include it in a workshop called, “Things I Can’t Teach You.”

It’s akin to what one of my acting professors in college used to say when we’d ask, “Is this what you want?” He’d answer: “Just keep playing and I’ll know it when I see it.”

And we knew it when we felt it. 

Yeah. That. That’s your authentic writing voice. It’s the way you write when you stop thinking about how you’re writing and just play and dance and juggle and watch it fall into place. 

And That’s Not All

But I’m not thinking “voice” is only about HOW we say things. It’s also about WHAT we say. 

You know how Mary Tyler Moore was a voice for juvenile diabetes? How Maya Angelou was a voice for women who felt like they had to hide their pasts? They spoke with complete authenticity because they had a passion for their causes.

We don’t have to be rallying for animal rights or the preservation of the coral reefs or the efficacy of alternative medicine over traditional in order to be a voice. We can also speak – through both fiction and non – to self-worth, freedom from trends, being real – the list is endless. 

But Wait, There’s More…

In addition, voice is about WHO we write TO. 

Our audience shapes the how and the what, in the same way we shift our speaking voices to the people around us. We don’t talk to our bosses the way we do to our ten-year-olds. We use a slightly different approach with the people we supervise than the one that comes in when we’re hanging with our girlfriends. 

I can attest to that. As soon as I discovered who I was meant to be writing for, my writing voice sighed and said, “Yes! Finally. You’ve found me. And I am you.”

The cool thing is: the basic tenor and tone and timbre of that voice may come across in different depths according to the who, but once you find it, it will always be there, no matter where your writing takes you. 

A Thought To Ponder

If you’ve found your voice, how would you describe it?

If you aren’t quite comfortable with the voice you’re writing in, could it be that you have still to discover what you’re passionate about and who you want to share that with? How fun will that be?!

Until next time…

Scribble on!